Van Halen To Release First Ever Live Album “Tokyo Dome Live In Concert”

As a few decades deep fan of the mighty Van Halen, I found the news about their first ever live album to be really exciting and I’m pleased to share the recent announcement about this upcoming release with you all. Let’s take a look. I’ll close out with some editorial thought at the end.

The Press Release:
Van Halen will release its first-ever live album to feature original singer David Lee Roth. Recorded on June 21, 2013 at the famed Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, TOKYO DOME LIVE IN CONCERT includes 23 songs, spanning all seven of the band’s albums with Roth. It will be released as a double CD; four-LP set on 180-gram vinyl; and digitally beginning March 31, 2015. Fans who pre-order Tokyo Dome Live In Concert before its March 31 release date through Amazon and digitally at iTunes will instantly receive downloads of “Panama” and “Runnin’ With The Devil.”.

Van Halen reinvented the sound of hard rock in 1978 with its influential and wildly successful eponymous debut album and then achieved even greater success six years later with 1984. Both albums would define a generation while selling more than 10 million copies each in the U.S. alone to earn diamond-certification from the RIAA. The band recently went back to the original analog tapes and remastered both of these landmark albums – Van Halen and 1984 – which are now also set for release on March 31, 2015 through Warner Bros. Records with pre-orders through Amazon available now.
Considered one of the greatest debut albums in rock history, Van Halen took the music world by storm in 1978 with an 11-song manifesto that features some of rock radio’s most played songs of all time and scorching concert staples like “Runnin’ With The Devil,” “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love,” “Jamie’s Cryin’,” the band’s signature cover of The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me,” and Eddie Van Halen’s finger-tapping tour de force, “Eruption.” Six years and five albums later, Van Halen had become one of the biggest bands in world around the release of 1984, which includes a number of the band’s most legendary songs such as the #1 hit, “Jump,” “Panama,” and “Hot For Teacher.”

Mastering engineer Chris Bellman, who remastered the original albums for Bernie Grundman Studios, Hollywood, CA, was enlisted for these new versions. In order to produce the original sound the band intended, Bellman cut straight from the quarter-inch tapes for CD; for 180-gram vinyl; and for the digital version. Newly mastered versions of Diver Down, Women and Children First, Van Halen II and Fair Warning are also being cut for each format and will be available soon.

TOKYO DOME LIVE IN CONCERT features an electrifying performance by singer David Lee Roth, guitarist Eddie Van Halen, drummer Alex Van Halen, and bassist Wolfgang Van Halen. Mixed by award-winning engineer and mixer Bob Clearmountain (Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Roxy Music, Nine Inch Nails, and many more), and mastered by Chris Bellman, the album features such classic anthems as “Dance The Night Away,” “Beautiful Girls,” “And The Cradle Will Rock…” “Unchained,” and “Everybody Wants Some!!” as well as blistering versions of “Tattoo,” “She’s The Woman,” and “China Town” from the group’s most recent studio album, A Different Kind of Truth.

A deluxe collection featuring Tokyo Dome Live In Concert and the newly remastered Van Halen and 1984 albums, as both a four-CD set and a six-LP vinyl set in special packaging, will also be available.

PiercingMetal Thoughts: Sounds like it could be a good one right? Now, I’m not going to lie to you and say that I am not hopeful about the band digging through their archives and delivering a few older live albums for us. Considering how some of performers we’ve followed over the years were known to have recorded everything I’d say with some certainty that Edward Van Halen was in that mindset and has a recorded stockpile. What do you say Eddie? Can we get a few classic years releases assembled? That said I am definitely grabbing this album when it comes out AND for sure will be looking into the remastered classic catalog since those albums formed my youth. That’s all I have on this one. What do you readers think about this news? Will you be ordering a copy of “Tokyo Dome Live In Concert” nice and early? Let me know down in the comments section. Ciao for now.